One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to a computer-readable recording medium, a configuration presentation method, and a configuration presentation device, and in particular to technology which simplifies operations that a user makes with respect to a printer driver for issuing print instructions to a plurality of types of printing devices.
In recent years, it is becoming common to share one or more image forming devices via a network such as a local area network (LAN). In such an environment, it is usual that a plurality of image forming devices are connected to the network, and it is not rare that the image forming devices connected to the network include image forming devices having functions different from each other.
In order to enable issuing print instructions to the plurality image forming devices connected to the network via a user terminal, printer drivers each corresponding to one of the image forming devices need to be installed onto the user terminal. Also, when a user switches from a first image forming device to a second image forming device and issues a print instruction to the second image forming device, the user has to switch from a first printer driver corresponding to the first image forming device to a second printer driver corresponding to the second image forming device. This makes user operations troublesome.
For instance, conventional technology (for instance, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-065290) proposes a program which causes a port monitor receiving a print instruction from a printer driver to output the print instruction to a destination differing from a preset destination. This program enables issuing print instructions to different image forming devices from one printer driver.
However, a user switching from a first image forming device to a second image forming device of a model differing from the first image forming device may be expecting to use a function which only the second image forming device has.
Even in such a case, the conventional technology of Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-065290 only changes the output destination of the same print instruction. That is, a print instruction for the second image forming device is issued by utilizing a printer driver for the first image forming device, and due to this, only print configurations related to configurable items available with the first image forming device can be made with respect to the second image forming device.
Meanwhile, another conventional technology (for instance, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-223834) proposes an application which, when a plurality of printer drivers are installed onto a user terminal, acquires all configurable items for each of the printer drivers, classifies the configurable items into common configurable items being configurable items common among the printer drivers and unique configurable items each being unique to a given printer driver, and enables a user to make configurations based on the configurable items so classified.
Yet another conventional technology (for instance, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-104541) proposes a device that, for each of a plurality of functions, causes a printer driver to display a text string used by an application to indicate the function, by replacing a text string used by the printer driver to indicate the function with the text string used by the application to indicate the function. This conventional device makes it easier for a user to recognize a function, regardless of whether the function corresponds to a common configurable item or a unique configurable item, and prevents the user from making erroneous operations.
However, in the conventional technology of Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2011-065290, No. 2009-223834, and No. 2009-104541, all configurable items are displayed regardless of whether the configurable items are common configurable items or unique configurable items. This makes it difficult for a user to identify a configurable item with respect to which the user wishes to make a configuration. This results in making print configurations becoming troublesome for users.